


our parade has already left

by SeasideFantasties



Series: Terrorfest Fills [1]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: (or so it seems), Angst, Betrayal, Canon Compliant, Gen, jopson still dies and everything is horrible, literally all this is is just angst, some people? cry facedown into the arctic rocks? to cope??????
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 10:16:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21097826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeasideFantasties/pseuds/SeasideFantasties
Summary: Thomas Jopson does not immediately fade after the sledge party disappears over the horizon. This place, in all its barrenness, won't allow him that luxury.(Day 1 of Terrorfest, prompt is "it's alive")





	our parade has already left

Long after the last silhouettes of the men and their boats fade over the horizon, Thomas Jopson is left there on the cold and barren ground, despair and anger filling him in equal measure as he tries and fails to drag his broken body across the stones. Captain Crozier, Little, everyone else- they had promised that all of them, collectively, would work together to bring each other home, that no man would be left behind. That they would survive as a collective unit, or not at all. But now he finds himself tossed out like trash, like a scrap off of someone’s dinner plate, their promises thoroughly smashed into the dust. And though he knows instinctively that his voice, a broken shell of what it had used to be, will not carry on the wind, Jopson still wants to vent all of his despair in that moment. He wants to scream to the heavens that he is still alive, that he cannot be abandoned and forgotten like this. That there’s still a chance that they will find some way to cure him of his illness, that he has just barely turned thirty and he is far too young to die in a place like this- so cold and inhospitable and barren, with that thing on the ice hounding them every step of the way- that he can still be useful if they only give him a chance.

That he’s still alive.  
  
_He’s still alive_.

He’s still alive, and they’ve _left_ him here, they’ve broken all the promises they made to him and it isn’t _fair_-

The stones cut into his already bruised flesh the longer that he feebly tries to drag himself over them, leaving rivulets of scarlet to run down and stain the ground beneath him, but Jopson cannot bring himself to care about any further injury that he may be causing himself. He can barely feel the rocks stinging against his flesh now, and only part of it is due to his sickness and delirium. A larger part is because he’s now convinced that nothing could possibly sting worse than this betrayal. Nothing could possibly wound him or cut him to the core more than the sight of the men’s boats disappearing from his view before his very eyes. No other betrayal could possibly feel so personal to him, that he would be left to crawl through the rocks like a wounded dog begging for its master to take it back. And in a way, wasn’t he just like the dog that had always been beaten? He’d practically tripped over himself to make these people happy- to serve them dutifully as first a steward and then a lieutenant- and he’d opened himself up to them. He’d thought that he was forming lasting connections with the rest of the crew, that they would protect him just as he had protected them, but in the end he was just like a dog that had been beaten, cast out onto the streets to spend the rest of his short and miserable life in squalor, and it isn’t fair and it isn’t _right _and they must come back for him at some point, they _must_, or else-

He can’t bring himself to think of what will happen if they don’t.

As much as he tries to keep it from happening, Jopson’s thoughts keep turning to the crew, to those he knows still live and those who are dead. Little and the other lieutenants he has grown close to, taking him under their wing and showing him what it meant to be in command of so many men, to know that they were all depending upon you to lead them and keep them safe, helping to build on the instincts of protecting those who couldn’t protect themselves that he already possessed. Irving, who had always entertained his questions about godly matters with a patient smile and an even more patient voice, who had been cut upon like a lamb led to slaughter by that complete bastard of a man that called himself Hickey. Though Jopson has never been quick to wish violence or death upon anyone, even those who have wronged him in some way, he desperately wishes that Cornelius Hickey, wherever he and his band of mutineers may be now, is suffering in the same way that he is suffering now.

(_But, Jopson thinks, he wouldn’t wish this kind of betrayal on even Hickey. He wouldn’t wish it on any of the men- this kind of hurt and sadness that burns him from the inside out, like those flames at the wretched event Carnivale had become_-)

He thinks of Goodsir, and the way that kindness and compassion towards others was so second-nature to the naturalist, and thinks that it’s a shame that Hickey and his men could have snatched the doctor up so easily. Goodsir has always been kind to him, and kind to everyone else who came to him seeking comfort. Goodsir wouldn’t have left a man behind just to save his own skin-  
  
(_But how does he know, how does he know that Goodsir hasn’t betrayed him like all the rest-_)  
  
He thinks of Commander Fitzjames, remembers how the man stepped up into a position of command when Crozier was indisposed so easily, how he had faced down a maw full of teeth only to shoot rockets at it so the rest of the men might have a chance to flee from the creature on the ice. How he had sheepishly admitted to such a deed later, and inspired equal parts guffaws of laughter and cheers from the men around the officer’s table. Jopson remembers, too, how fragile Fitzjames had looked when he’d fallen from his hauling position onto the rocks, how he too had tried feebly to stand and deny the severity of his illness for that much longer. How he had looked over at the Commander, and wondered if he himself wasn’t far behind, if he wouldn’t be the next person collapsing onto the rocks and requiring someone to carry his limp body to safety.  
  
(_Tales of grandeur didn’t save Commander Fitzjames, and they won’t save you_-)

Most of all, he thinks of Captain Crozier. He thinks of how the man must have seemed unapproachable and cantankerous to anyone else, but how he had been allowed to see the softer side of the Expedition’s second, the side that he had seldom shown to anyone else before his self-imposed alcohol withdrawal. He remembers how he’d sat by Francis’s sickbed, opening himself up in a way that he had never done with any other officer, telling him of his mother and her sickness, her dependence upon the laudanum that had dulled her pain for so long, the way he dreaded hearing a woman’s laughter now. Remembers himself whispering to the captain and pledging that he would be by his side no matter what. Remembers that the captain had sat by his sickbed in turn, telling Jopson stories of his own childhood and singing traditional Irish ballads to him in a rough voice, as though he hoped that by doing so he could alleviate some of his steward’s pain for that much longer. Francis Crozier had been like a second father to him, and he had pledged his loyalty blindly, and in the end that promise that the captain had made to bring them home safely and in one piece has been crushed into the dust.  
  
It hits him all at once, in that moment. He isn’t going home. He’ll never get to see England again, with its green hills and its summer days that are truly warm instead of being just a tick above freezing. He’ll never get to stroll through London’s streets ever again, or be able to tell anyone who asks about how breathtaking the Arctic is (or how it had seemed, at one time). Instead he’ll die alone here, forgotten, and the despair he feels over such a fact is enough to rip a sob from his throat so loudly that his entire body heaves with the force of it, his tears upon his face seeming to be the first true warmth that he’s felt in months. Jopson’s head droops as he sobs brokenly, there among the rocks, and as his sobs gradually grow quieter and his shaking grows weaker, his thoughts become more and more hopeless.

_Please come back for me please I’ve done nothing to deserve this I’ve been good I’ve been loyal I’ve tried my best please I want to see London again I want to see the color green again I’ve almost forgotten what it looks like they can’t have left me here they can’t have they **promised **we’d all make it the captain has to come back for me he has to I can’t die here I can’t be alone I’m only thirty I can’t die here I can’t I can’t I **can’t**-_

Thomas Jopson will never get to see the Inuit that stumble upon what is left of the sick camp, later. He will never get to see how they recoil at the sight of his body, how they talk to each other in hushed tones, how they leave the area as soon as they come for fear that the despair they feel in such a place will touch them too.  
  
He will never see Captain Crozier return to the camp, so many moons later, missing one hand and in the company of the Netsilik woman they had sheltered upon the ship so long ago. He will never see how the captain kneels to brush the hair back from his face, and has to fight back his own tears at the thought of losing a man who had been so like a son to him.  
  
Instead, Thomas Jopson dies alone, with betrayal carving an icy hole into his heart, face-down in the rock. He dies, and the last thought in his mind is that if someone had seen that he was still alive, all of this could have been avoided.

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the Erebites and Terrors server on Discord, who is running this entire event! Big big thanks to Megan and the rest for coming up with such an event, for the prompts ahead look devilishly exciting to write for! 
> 
> Also I do apologize for this but this plot bunny came into my head and wouldn't leave, which was basically "what if Jopson didn't actually just die the last time we saw him in the show proper and lingered for a little while longer to basically just stew in his thoughts". I swear I was going to make this a fluffy prompt until that idea sprang into my head. You have no reason to believe me, but I WAS. 
> 
> (I'll just say right off the bat thatI really didn't do like anything in the way of research for this particular fic so I apologize if some things time-line wise seem a little funky [shrug emoji]) 
> 
> Also am I ever going to stop naming Terror fics after lines from "Colder Heavens"? Perhaps.


End file.
